Academe urged to keep up with call center momentum

While the momentum of call center investments in the country is soaring high, a foreign business consultant has urged the academe to keep up and respond to the demand of the industry, especially for the call center manpower needs.

Peter Wallace suggested that the academe must immediately offer crash-courses for call center skills requirement to support the expanding and upcoming call center companies that are eyeing to locate in the Philippines.

The educational institution must now provide a specific course or training for designed for call center manpower, so that graduates can immediately be absorbed in this kind of industry.

"We should exploit our edge in the language skill," Wallace said in an interview. However, when asked to describe the general educational system of the Philippines, Wallace said it is "going to hell."

The entry of call center investments and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has helped balance the struggling economy of the country. He said call centers and BPOs, including tourism, healthcare, care giving, among others are the bright spots to focus into.

However, if the pool of skilled manpower cannot be sustained, call center investors may consider locating in other countries, as most of the Asian neighbors are also tripling their efforts to learn English, or to use English as their second language.

Wallace mentioned that the Philippines is short of about 42,000 classrooms, while the government can only afford to build 7,000 class rooms next year.

Although he said that building up the deteriorating educational system in the country takes time, he said the academe, especially in the private sector must do their own homework, and coordinate directly with the industry players.

Wallace is alarmed of the figure he got, that in Cebu alone, out of 40,000 call center agent applicants, only 1,050 are hired.

Also, out of 100 being interviewed for call center employment only four to five were able to pass the standard.

Wallace said more serious and active coordination between the call center companies, and the academe should be started. Otherwise, the Philippines may lose (once again) this "economic savior", and big employment generator.

The Australian business consultant added that the Philippines must nurture its niche in language to invite more call center or BPO investments, as these industries do not only give employment to thousands of Filipinos, but also helped activate the construction sector.

Next year, he projected that the property development sector will post stronger gains, as the demand for new office space for call centers and other industries like IT and BPOs will still be there.

As of end-2004, the BPO industry employed about 70,000 employees and contributed around US$800 million in revenues for the local economy. Based on conservative projections, call center employment will increase to 250,000 in five years and will double to 500,000 in ten years.

The Philippine call center industry is expected to overtake India in terms of dollar revenues by 2008. Wallace reiterated that the academe must immediately provide the specific skill demand for this industry and initiate to link directly with the call center companies.

In Cebu, there are already several universities and colleges incorporating specialized call center course as elective subjects for fourth year college levels. The University of Southern Philippines (USP) has pioneered this effort in coordination with the Call Center Academy of the Philippines.